My Muse, My Love
by Anjirika
Summary: "I want you to understand why I've stuck around." Kate has to deal with the fact that Sophia Conrad was the first muse and Castle has to make Kate understand that she is so much more than his muse now. Spoilers for S4 E15&16. Written before the ep aired.


Disclaimer: The characters of 'Castle' do not belong to me. They belong to Andrew Marlowe and ABC.

_Author's Note: This is set after Pandora & Linchpin with Beckett trying to come to terms with the fact that Castle once shadowed another woman who was his muse, and Castle trying to tell her that she was much more special. I have no idea how this two-part special event is going to go down, but this is how I would like to see it end. I know that it's probably not going to happen, but a Caskett shipper can dream, right? :D_

**My Muse, My Love**

After her debriefing with Captain Gates, Kate had returned to her apartment barely speaking to Esposito or Ryan or even Castle. She knew that her boys had watched her with their eyes as she had left, but there was just no way that Kate could deal with talking to anyone at the moment. Even though she had helped to catch the bad guy, and avert a disaster that had national security implications, Kate still couldn't quite shake the feeling like she was second best. The revelation that Richard Castle, her partner and friend had found a female muse at the beginning of his career unnerved her. And even though he had told her time and again over the course of the case that it was no where near the same as what they shared, Kate couldn't help but feeling as though she was the runner up.

A knock on the door brought her out of her musings and Kate rose to unhook the latch. When she opened the door she was surprised and not surprised at the same time to see Castle standing there with a bottle of wine in one hand and two wine glasses in the other. "I thought that we should celebrate," he said with a cheeky smile as he held them up for her to get a better look. "I figured that because you high-tailed it out of the precinct so quickly you wouldn't want to go out so I brought the out to you."

Kate smiled and even though she really didn't want any company, her heart just couldn't turn Castle away. "Come on in," she told him with a smile of her own as she opened the door a little wider. Castle's smile grew a little wider as he crossed the threshold into her apartment. He followed her lead and when she settled down onto her couch, after grabbing the de-corker from the kitchen, he sat beside her and placed the wine and the glasses down on the coffee table. He opened the wine bottle and poured them each a glass of the rosé liquid. When both glasses were poured he handed a glass to Kate and then took one for himself.

"So..." she began hesitantly. "What are we celebrating?"

"You mean aside from saving the city yet again?"

Kate nodded. "Yeah, aside from that."

"Well I thought that we could celebrate us."

Kate felt her heart skip a beat. "Us?" she asked.

"Yeah," Castle confirmed. "A writer and his muse."

Instantly Kate's face darkened. "Oh."

"Listen I've told you already what you and I is infinitely different than what she and I had." Castle began knowing exactly what had caused her to have such a sour look on her face. "When I had gotten all that I needed from Sophia...and I do mean everything...I left. She was just a project; there was no way that I could have continued to exist in her world, nor did I want to."

Kate shook her head. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want you to understand why it is that I've stuck around," Castle explained earnestly as he put his glass down. "I'll be the first one to admit that in the beginning it was because you were a mystery and I felt like I needed to shadow you in order to better understand the character that I was creating. But somewhere along the line it became something more than just gathering bits and pieces of inspiration. I have enough material to write a hundred books on Nikki Heat."

Kate put her glass down. "So then why do you stay?"

"Are you telling me that you haven't figured it out yet?" Castle asked almost in surprise. He knew that Kate hadn't heard him admit his feelings for her when she had been shot, but he had thought that with her superb deductive reasoning skills that she would have been able to figure out why it was he stuck around.

Kate shook her head slightly. Without saying anything she was telling him no, knowing full well that what she was saying was somewhat of a lie. She had always known that Castle had wanted to make her another one of his conquests but somewhere along the line she had realized that his demeanour towards her had changed. And she remembered with acute clarity how he had confessed his love to her when she had been shot. It was the last thing that she remembered before waking up after her surgery and she had not figured out how to deal with that revelation— especially when she realized that she loved him too.

"Kate..." Castle began as he took her hand. "...you are so much more than my muse."

"Am I?" she whispered, her mind trying to process the direction that this conversation was taking. "Really?"

Castle nodded. "I'm not sure when, but somewhere during the past four years I've fallen in love with you," he told her watching as a look of surprise and relief crossed her face. "That's why I've stuck around Kate," Castle continued as he took her other hand. "You bring out the very best in me. You've made me see and understand things that I never thought of. I never thought that I'd get to this point in my life and... and I know that I would never, ever be able to walk away from you...from this. At least not without telling you how I feel and knowing whether or not you feel the same."

Kate felt her heart beats and knew as she counted each one that the seconds were passing. She didn't know what to say to this admission of love anymore than she had known what to say to his admission of love in the cemetery when she had been shot. Her mind was reeling and she was unable to string a coherent thought together and so Kate just sat there. Her hesitation came like a devastating blow to Castle who took her silence to be an admission of not having the same feelings.

"I see..." he said in a rather broken voice as he dropped his hands. "You know it was silly of me to think that you would, well if you could just forget that I ever said anything and—"

Kate cut off Castle's ramblings by kissing him. It was like the kiss that they had shared the year before, the one that they never talked about. Kate knew that they were going to have a lot to talk about after her kiss, but that was something that she was willing to face after she pulled away and she wasn't willing to pull away just quite yet. In all actuality it was Castle who pulled away first and Kate couldn't help but smile at the stunned look on his face. It was a mixture of disbelief and amazement, which quickly changed into hope. "And I guess you do feel the same."

Kate nodded. "I do," she told him. "I don't know when it happened but I figured out a while ago that I was in love with you, just like I knew that you loved me." She brushed a piece of hair out of her eye and looked at Castle sheepishly. "I uh..."

"You remember," Castle said simply. "Don't you."

"Yeah I always have but Castle you've got to understand what was going through my head and why I—"

"You don't have to explain Kate," he told her softly with acceptance in his eyes. "I may have been hurt by the way that you cut me off but I understand. I accept that things were spiralling out of control and you couldn't deal with everything. Something had to give and it was me."

"Can you ever forgive me?"

"To be honest I wasn't going to, but it's what you said on the swings that made me realize that I would be willing to wait for you."

Kate smiled at the memory. She had told him that she had built up a wall that was tied to her mother's murder and how she wouldn't be able to be the woman that she wanted to be in a relationship until she had gotten past that. "Well you don't have to wait any longer Rick," she told him fondly. "I've accepted that I may never solve my mothers murder, or that of Captain Montgomery."

"You're giving up?"

Kate shook her head. "More like accepting that there are some things that I will never be able to figure out..." she paused and took Castle's hand. "What I have figured out however is how much I love you."

Rick grinned and leaned in for another kiss. "I love you too."


End file.
